Homily: Monday - 4th Week of Easter 2016 - Abundant Life

Landscape with a Flock, by Charles Émile Jacque, painted 1872

Where last week our Gospel readings were taken from chapter 6 of St. John’s Gospel, what is called “the Bread of Life” discourse, following Good Shepherd Sunday yesterday, today, our readings are from chapter 10, what is called “the Good Shepherd discourse” in which Our Lord draws upon very powerful shepherding imagery.  The Old Testament is steeped in Shepherding imagery. Over and over God is described as a Shepherd.

The most beautiful expression of God’s shepherding care in the Bible and probably all of literature, is Psalm 23.  The Psalm tells us that God is the Shepherd who feeds us in green pastures, who leads us to safety, who protects us in dark valleys.  He feeds, he guides, he protects.

On Good Shepherd Sunday yesterday, I celebrated baptism for a baby girl. I thought about how parents are called to be good shepherds for their children. Parents of course feed their children, protect their children, guide their children. Most importantly, parents need to help their children know and follow the voice of the One Shepherd, Christ the Good Shepherd.

For in Baptism, we become members of God’s flock the Church. We enter the Church through Christ, through his saving waters of baptism. Within the Church, Christ our Shepherd, he guides us by his teaching, feeds us with his body and blood, protects us from spiritual evils which seek the destruction of our souls through grace which helps us to resist temptation. 

Human shepherds like parents and priests work together to help the young ones to have a deep, personal, intimate love of the Shepherd. And that is accomplished by handing on the faith, and by our own personal example. 

At baptism, parents have such high hopes for their children: they want what is best for them. Parents want to see their children grow to live full, happy lives. And so does Jesus the Good Shepherd. He says today, “I came so they might have life and have it abundantly”. 

Jesus offers abundant pasture to us—abundant graces flow from Christ to His Church in the Sacraments to enrich the lives of the flock on our journey of salvation.  God is not stingy with his blessings; nor does he want us to live a joyless, miserable life.  Graces are available to us in such abundance, yet often, we deprive ourselves from them because of fear and attachment to sin and worldly pursuits.

Medical science seeks to add years to our lives, but only Jesus can add life to our years. In our Easter journey may we continue to learn to trust the Shepherd, to be protected and fed by the shepherd, that we may be ever more faithful to Him for the glory of God and salvation of souls.